Doug Engelbart 1968 Demo - 1 of 9

[TiagoTiagoT]

Too bad they didn't also record the audience's reactions

[BBQTeach]

Also I think this is the first ever recorded appearance of chip music...

[BBQTeach]

I wonder when typing that he realized that soon someone would be watching that on a computer (which is a under dog for its time) that can run 1 and a half billion calculations a second, store 16 billion 1s or 0s (2 GB) in super fast access memory and just under 2000 billion (250GB) 1s or 0s in persistent memory.

Oh and it outputs to two full color screens, can last for 8 hours on its own power supply and yet fits in my lap.

You know what? I think he might have...

[BlackSwanTactical]

1996-97, my ISP, U.S. Coordinated Networks had on the Internet a Cam Tree (mated to a spider). This abstraction was developed at Xerox PARC. Ap was open to anyone visiting, with a default of indexing all clients hosted, and given a URL would map any web server two dir deep, allowing the full rotation of the objects (web pages). Written in Java. Great for assessing strategic plan for any corp. Worked in Menlo Park, SV 2000-2003.

[twocsies]

Why is there a computer but the video is black and white. ERROR ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE>>>

[randomforum]

Lol, no color in the 60's :D LOL

[vizsla69]

sounds like someone has their Blackberry too close to the phone !

[jfreijser]

Engelbart is the father of the modern day GUI. His ideas influenced thinking at Xerox PARC, and combined with Jeff Raskin's concepts of humane computing, to produce the Mac. What I regret is that Engelbart's concept of 'augmentation engineering' has received so little attention over the years. The essence of the concept is that we humans must not see computers as machines for automation, replacing human activities, but as machines for augmentation, assisting and enhancing human activities.

[nostriluu]

Is there a formal Englebar - Raskin - Apple link? Englebart's idea of the 'knowledge worker' doesn't seem very compatible with Raskin's simplified task driven interfaces, and his ideas seem more egalitarian than Apple's focus on the wealthy.

[jfreijser]

I don't believe there ever was a formal link between Raskin and Engelbart in the sense that they worked together or saw each other on a regular basis at any time in the 60s and 70s. But there runs a clear line from Engelbart's Augmentation Research Centre (at SRI) to Xerox PARC to Apple.

The "knowledge worker" was one of the outcomes of his vision. His objective was to augment the human intellect, so that the world's increasingly urgent and complex problems could be dealt with more astutely.

[nostriluu]

Bringing Apple in seems rather arbitrary. They don't seem to be intentionally working on any kind of inclusive distributed knowledge worker scenario. For sure Apple's Mac has been strongly influenced or subjected to the GUI and networking, but their current direction, iPhone/iPad seems more based on Raskin's simplified task interfaces where the user only needs the most basic information to accomplish one thing, rather than participating in a model of information sharing.

[nostriluu]

Apple's 1987 "Knowledge Navigator" video implied a central AI, which is contrary to Englebart's ideas of human focused augmentation, and their model seems very top down based on producers and consumers. Google and other companies/outfits much more seem to be working on a unified knowledge worker type model where a set of common tools are used to manage and share information.

[phdecora]

jfreijser:

yes... now that we are using computers to enhance intellect, we are making great decisions... like creating collateralized debt obligations based on mortgage backed securities! and doing intelligence work on weapons of mass destruction! surely computers have ushered in a wonderful new age of human decision making.

[Hunkola]

Kinda scary how this guy knew what computing and internet was going to be like 30 years before his time.......he was a modern-day Nostradamus!!!

[drcanoro]

he invented them

[maictaison]

Engelbart did not invent computers.

[Membrane556]

This must have seemed incredible to people back in the 60s.

Also it's funny how his demo went a lot better then Microsoft's demos do today lol.

[Airgraph1]

the mouse sucks i have a graphic tablet now

[isaeltavarez]

Man... YOU! suck. Jesus get a life. Why did you even waste your time writing abto show off that you use a GRAPHIC TABLET. wooooow you are soooo AWSOME... NOT

[Selasia]

Thanks Doug, and thank to the entheogens.

[chunkyloop]

The first Keynote !

[Lightnocyst]

It's like watching sci fi, but it's real. Can anyone match the advancement and scale today that this did then?

[hyretech]

Search youtube for Grand challenge or Urban challenge. You'll see Robotic vehicles doing their OWN demos.

Seriously, though - IBM has done a lot with speech, Apple and Toshiba with packaging and miniaturization.  And video games are very lifelike and realistic. I can carry around all my music in my pocket.

[lukaspukas1]

Englebart didn't realize that he set the future for all PCs everywhere. God bless him.

[synchro21]

The same for most of the people watching him!

[Stevenup7004]

Nice! Just, exciting to watch

[khisanth75]

yes this is one incredible bit of film. a windows gui in the 60's. amazing really

[J3ns999]

Nice! This is where the first Computer mouse is showed to the world! :D

[BIOGENA]

o.0